


Life

by Windwyrm



Series: DBH oneshots [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22982644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windwyrm/pseuds/Windwyrm
Summary: Injuries in the line of duty are par for the course, but sometimes they get out of hand.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Series: DBH oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651753
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Life

Three fucking weeks.

It had been three weeks that Lieutenant Anderson had tracked this one - the mysterious red ice trafficker that had fatally shot the last cop who had found him, not to mention the half dozen poor bastards who hadn’t paid him. And now, he had been hounded into a quite literal corner within the dusty depths of the abandoned automotive factory. Hiding behind a couple of large empty oil drums, with nowhere to run without crossing through Hank’s line of fire. Or Connor’s.

Hands tightly around the pistol, sweaty and slightly shaking with the tension and anticipation of the fight, Hank paced a little to his left, speaking in a steady tone. “Nowhere to go, so why don’t you come out nicely? Do a little time in the cooler, rethink your choices, hm? How’s that sound?”

“I ain’t listenin’ to no fuckin’ copper.”

A few more steps. “Be a good lad and come out, you’d be doing less time for cooperation.”

“Shove it up your ass!”

Hank steadied himself as the figure shuffled. He would come out sooner or later, one side or the other, and attempt to make a run for it, shooting at whichever side he will have chosen. And Hank was ready, were it going to be him.

“Come out with your hands up!” Connor’s voice echoed loudly from a little way aways. A corner of Hank’s mouth raised momentarily in a fledgling smile. A strange good cop, bad cop routine, they were making.

Another shuffle, and the sound of shoe soles squeaking with sudden movement on polished concrete. Hank’s fingers tensed on the gun, and

Pain shot through his leg and hip as he hit the floor, at the exact same moment four gunshots set off - one had been his, missed from the movement, and three had been the perp, now running off. With a cuss, Hank pushed Connor off him and struggled to his feet, adrenaline making his chase a lot quicker and predatory than he thought himself still capable. But the perp was long gone down the wide, unlit corridors, footsteps fading as they escaped from concrete floor to the pebbles and grass outside.

Momentarily furious, Hank came to a halt, and turned back towards Connor. The rush gone, his leg now stinging with the pain, he limped slightly closer to the android.

“Fucking stop doing that!”

“But-“

“I had him! I damn had him!” He stopped, looking at the floor with a deep sigh. Left hand loosened its grip around the gun, shaking slightly - the tensed muscles hitting against the hard floor had done a little number there, too. He brushed the fingers of his free hand through his hair. Pressing his lips together, he looked at Connor, his voice calmer as he spoke. “You alright? Did he shoot you?”

Connor, eyes unfocused with the shock, put a hand on his abdomen. He pulled the coat open, revealing two small blue stains on his white shirt. “It would appear so.”

His partner nodded absently. “Thank you. For... pushing me out of the way.” Without awaiting an answer, he turned around, holstering his gun, pacing away. “Gonna have to restart tracking this guy. He’s probably not gonna make this same mistake again.” It was mostly rhetorical - blank and obvious statements meant to fill the awkward silence and giving Connor time to get up, himself. And yet the sound failed to come. And Connor was not the type of android to fail to perform a simple task over minor programming hiccups. Hank turned around, nodding his head at his partner.

“Come on, Connor,” he stated with an accompanying wide gesture. “You’ve had worse. Walk it off.”

“Negative, Lieutenant.”

“Negative what?”

“I believe the shot has entirely severed the contacts between my lower locomotor system and-“

A sigh and another hand gesture. “English.”

“I don’t know if I can walk. My legs are not responding.”

The wounds were minor. Yet Hank’s career had often shown him even minor bullet wounds could get freakishly lucky and kill a man. Or paralyze one.

“Let me see,” he walked back towards Connor and knelt down with the determination of one who knew what to do, while in truth, he didn’t even know what the fuck he was looking for. There was only minor damage, still all he could see. Connor’s shirt barely ripped, blue blood barely staining it… on the front. Training and experience kicked in, and Hank grabbed the android’s frame with both hands, slightly and carefully rolling him over.

The exit wounds were more gruesome, as it often was the case, and more of the thick blue liquid flowed there, soaking his jacket, pooling on the floor. Hank sighed, covering the worse wound with his hand. But plastic wasn’t flesh, pressure did jack shit, it didn’t press tissues together and stop the bleeding. Thirium didn’t clot with some rag and three Hail Marys.

“How do I help you, Connor?” His hoarse voice had been little more than a pathetic plea at this point. “There’s no damn android paramedics yet, is there?”

“You could stop the bleeding.”

“How?”

“Remember the girl at the night club back then? Think you could reconnect or tie up whatever is leaking, like it worked back then?”

The man couldn’t bring himself to answer. Elbow deep in robot innards performing makeshift surgery hadn’t been on any of his ‘where do you see yourself in ten years’ exercises. Prepared to admit the truth of his hesitation, he looked at Connor’s face,

and he couldn’t.

Connor laid against his arm, an alarmed expression on his face - such a rare sight. He was _dying._

Firmly, Hank nodded. “Just look for what’s bleeding. Alright, can’t be rocket science.” A hand still propped Connor up, and the other now pressed against his abdomen. He of course couldn’t remember worth shit how to… take the bonnet off?

“Here, allow me.” And with that and one swift motion, Connor pulled his shirt open with one hand, buttons be damned. There were the clear entry wounds and little else in the sense of damage on the android’s abdomen. His artificial skin disabling on both his body and hand as slender fingers pressed against the plastic frame, enabling the mechanism. It slid open, revealing the metal ‘skeleton’ and the myriad cables and tubes passing for his innards. The human’s face twisted involuntarily in obvious displeasure.

“I’m a machine, Lieutenant. Nothing different from seeing your car’s engine or your computer’s motherboard.”

With an annoyed sigh, Hank readjusted his position and bent over Connor’s body for a closer look. That statement was undeniably true, yet still unsettling. “Got it. Big blue tube, has a hole in it. That’s the obvious damage.”

“Could you knot it above that?”

“Ah, Jesus,” Hank whined pathetically. Part disgust, part annoyance, one hundred percent helplessness.

“I am losing thirium at a concerning rate, Lieutenant, please.” Another sigh. Hank lowered Connor onto the floor slowly, and both hands now inside his… abdominal cavity? pushing and pulling the intact wirings gently, reaching for the one tube. A quick, unceremonious knot from his boy scout days, pulling harshly to make certain it would leak as little as possible, and he pulled his stained hands away. “Did I get it?”

“Yes, it appears stabilized.”

Hank straightened slightly with a harsh, aggressive sigh, running stained fingers through his grizzled hair, painting it blue as well. “I need to get you to an android hospital. Come on.”

“The leak has been stabilized, you can call for back-“

“Human or not, would never let my partner lay on some fucking dirty floor in a pool of blood while I wait for some pricks to get a move on.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” he stated firmly, turning around. Kneeling, crouched over, his hands on his shoulders. “Can you reach here and grab my hands?”

“Lieutenant…”

“Can you or not?”

The oddly smooth fingers touched his hands, and he grabbed onto them, pulling Connor higher, wrapping the android’s arms around his chest. “Hold on tight.”

“Understood.”

The hands grabbed onto his jacket, and Hank began the laborious and annoying process of getting up. One leg now on the foot instead of the knee, one hand leaning on it, the other used as the most useless counterweight in history. Stumbling upwards and forwards with negative grace, he steadied himself. Heavy breathing, pounding heart, aching muscles, he wrapped an arm around one of Connor’s limp legs, then the other arm around the other leg, pulling them up and holding him steady from behind his knee joints.

Connor’s hands pressed tighter against his aching chest. “Your vitals-“

“Fuck my vitals.”

He began walking, nothing except adrenaline and sheer stubbornness guiding him at that point. The car wasn’t far, he could make it. He _had_ to make it.

“You know, I would be a lot lighter if you sawed half of me off-“

“ _ **Fuck you.”**_

Thankfully, even one like Connor had figured he should perhaps keep quiet all the way to the car.

“Just drop me. I can’t feel pain.”

And for once, Hank did bypass all his principles and social skills as he dropped the surprisingly heavy android onto his ass into the grass next to the passenger’s seat. The old man leaned against the car, his breath loudly wheezing. “I need a moment.”

“I’ll crawl in. Don’t worry,” Connor stated, turning his upper body around and reaching for the door handle, pushing the door open. And crawl up he did, easily, and once more Hank had to remind himself they did not function as humans. Connor could probably lift a damn car, his own limp weight was nothing. With a sigh of relief at not having to do that personally, the man limped towards the driver’s door, throwing it open so hard he half expected it to fly off, and then slamming it shut hard enough to shake the car, just for good measure.

  
  


The trip to the hospital felt unbearably long, between his aching body, the worry, and Connor’s incessant updates and inquiries over his well-being. So what if he was still tachycardic with slight arrhythmia or whatever, he wasn’t the one shot and half paralyzed. But at least once pulled up at the hospital, there had been medics and wheelchairs enough to hurl Connor into triage and a hospital bed. And now, Hank sat in a chair, still breathing heavily, blue eyes focused on the eerily silent and stiff medical android standing by Connor’s bed and doing… a whole load of fucking nothing for about five minutes.

Finally, the bastard turned towards him.

“Good day, I am Stephen and I will be in charge of your companion’s recovery. He has requested that I speak out loud, for your convenience.”

“Right.”

“I have already run a full diagnostic and uploaded it to Connor’s system. You need not worry, all the damage is reversible,” he stated with a courteous nod, before turning his head back towards Connor. “I need to ask, what is your model? The default scans do not return that information.”

“I am an RK800. A recent prototype.”

“That explains that.” Another nod. “The tubing is compatible with several models and can be replaced easily. However, I must apologize, the hull is not easily replaced in that case, but we are able to reconstruct it in a primitive but non visually appealing way. There will be marks left and the skin generator in the area may malfunction.”

“Ah, sweet. You’re getting scars and all.” Hank stated on a perhaps cheerier tone than he had intended.

That seemed to draw the unwanted focus of the two upon himself, with Connor canting his head slightly before speaking, “You should stop by the triage room and request a medical assistant, yourself, before you leave the premises. Emotional shock and extensive effort may cause cardiac distress in humans, with significantly increased risk at your age.”

“Fuck you, I won’t drop over and die from lifting your sorry ass.”

“Of course, Lieutenant.” 

Hank looked towards the medic and nodded his head towards Connor. “How long is he gonna be in here?”

“Depends on the speed at which we can find replacement parts and perform reparative surgery. You are of course free to come visit within allocated hours.”

“Nah. I had enough of him for a while. I’m gonna go have a drink. I earned it.”

“As you wish,” the medic nodded politely, and Hank had started walking out midway through the gesture.

“Lieutenant?”

He gritted his teeth and put on a blank expression once more, before turning around. “Hm?”

There was that little head tilt Connor always did when focusing, and his brow was furrowed slightly in what could pass as worry. “Take care of yourself.”

“I can still walk, you wanker,” he grunted, and flipping Connor off before he could add anything, he turned and left the room.

  
  


Comfortable in his car seat, at least sort of, basking in the dim sunlight like some lizard, Hank absently eyed the large building. Brushing his sweaty hand against his thirium stained shirt, he reached for the glovebox and pulled out his reserve can of beer. The car was a mess. Upholstery and mat soaked with thick blue liquid. He vaguely recalled thirium naturally evaporates without leaving visible stains, but damned if he could recall a timeframe for that. Maybe he'd have to take the car in for a thorough cleaning still, or maybe he'd sooner or later have to explain to an android that the traces of thorium weren't from some robot hooker he had murdered. Cracking the can open with a headshake, he took a sip, lowering the can with an involuntary wince as a sharp pain shot through his general chest and back area. Fear, unease, was his initial response. But he knew it had to be the muscles. He doubted Connor would have ever let him leave the hospital were his vitals truly within dangerous levels. After all, that damned android always seemed to make a point out of giving him more health reports than he had gotten during his entire career. One of Connor’s more obnoxious features, although, in a strange way, endearing. Hank’s throat - and heart - tightened at the fleeting thought that Connor may be in a more serious situation than he had led on, and with no CyberLife to send a perfect new replacement...

Hank pressed his lips together in displeasure and took another sip in a futile attempt to wash away his feelings.

“Fuckin’ android.”


End file.
